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Yup.

65 (12.2%)

Not even close.

391 (73.4%)

Almost . . . but didn't

26 (4.9%)

Maybe managed halfway

51 (9.6%)

Total Members Voted: 530

[JoshuaFH]

Good luck on your next ArchEologist CoD.

My Tourist is doing mighty fine, I'm tolerating my pet cause he's really pulling his weight, and he really helped against some Orcs early on. I named him "Grinder".

Early on, I found a banded mail, which helped my AC problem immensely. Coupled with a oilskin cloak I found in a shop, a +2 orcish helm I found, and some iron shoes, I'm rocking -2 AC.

Pounding a hobbit to death, I managed a a Rune dagger, which is nice. I saw a lamp lying on the ground, and immediately thought that my crazy luck was repeating itself, so I picked it up and turned it on, and I let out a big "AWWWW" some hundred odd turns later when it started flickering. I promptly called it "not magic" to clear up any future confusion.

Venturing into the Mine's I've managed to get a good stack of 15 daggers, as well as my dagger skill to expert. Found a dwarvish mithril coat, which immediately replaced my banded mail.

I made it to Minetown, and I got a big surprise, it's the one layout of Minetown I've never seen before! The one with the trees! I never saw trees before, so that was nice. Rummaging through the stores, I found a key to replace my credit card, and a MAGIC LAMP baby yeah! I know it's magic because it didn't have the "not magic" label attached to it, so see how useful that was? The temple was cross-aligned, but it's no biggie when all you want to do it altar check stuff.

Back up in the main dungeon, there's a giant potion shop, with a few smoky potions. I'll probably want to buy those and get them blessed later so I can try my luck at another wish.

[kcwong]

My valkyrie's in need of genocide scrolls, enchant and earth, plus many more potions. Her tiny stash of polymorph wands doesn't turn up anything good... so now I'm considering pudding farm.

On the other hand I started an elf wizard on my pocket pc. Starting rings are invisbility and increase accuracy +2, starting spellbooks are force bolt and detect monsters.

My kitty died to a gecko on DL2. :| I used E-word very liberally and mostly force bolt-ed my way to Oracle level, since I cannot find more than 3 daggers.

On Oracle level I almost got killed by team ant... failed 3 finger E-word in a row. But I made it, plus a cat and a pony showed up. I tamed them and buried team ant, then started Sokoban.

I found a wand of fire on Soko 1... so I executed umiman's Sokoban-is-dead-easy plan with a perfect score. Pony died on Soko 1, but I found and tamed another right away.

On Soko zoo both pets got killed by a giant mimic in front of the door... but with a wand of fire I cleared it no problem. The prize is a BoH... reflection would be better, but hey, I can haul all my spellbooks around now. Sokoban also gave me 4 more rings, 3 more wands and 3 more spellbooks.

On my way back to an chaotic altar on DL3, I met a hill orc on Soko 2 (this version. It read a scroll of create monster, and summoned monsters completely filled 2 rooms! A big crowd of killer bees, jellies, more hill orcs, rothes, a rock mole and a hobbit.

That's a truly WTF moment. Without any other options I burned the third E-word in the game, and dealt with all of them. I suspect I only have 1-2 charges left in the wand.

I got attacked by big packs of rothes and killer bees twice more on my way back to DL3... but I stuck to fingering those times. The wand must be kept for true emergencies.

The 3 wands: one writes in dust, a polymorph, and an enlightenment. I tried the 4 rings on, and only 1 self-identified as adornment +2. I used the enlightenment wand to find out the other 3: searching, see invisible and stealth. The spellbooks are all uncursed, so I read them all: cure sickness, sleep and fireball!

The stairs to the mines is right next to the co-aligned altar... so this is my plan: I'm going in to kill gnomes, and drag them up to sacrifice. I'm going to get the bane asap.

Edit: Almost forgot to mention. In the mines a gnome zapped a wand at me... no effect. It's a bloody Gnome With The Wand Of Death! I would be dead if I'm not playing a wizard.

This is going to be one hell of a game.

[JoshuaFH]

I found a wand of fire on Soko 1... so I executed Chaoticjosh's Sokoban-is-dead-easy plan with a perfect score.

Geeze, atleast remember who said what!

But seriously, that wand could have very well been a wand of striking, because the Gnome with a wand of death is legendary! An urban myth! It does not exist and that's that!

But yeah, one of the reasons I sometimes do Sokoban before the Mines is that I'm dead scared one of the Gnomes or Dwarves will have a wand or something similar.

[kcwong]

Geeze, atleast remember who said what!

Doh! I'm very sorry about that... 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But seriously, that wand could have very well been a wand of striking, because the Gnome with a wand of death is legendary! An urban myth! It does not exist and that's that!

It is a wand of death. I immediately stepped onto his square to claim the wand, and it had been self-identified.

But yeah, one of the reasons I sometimes do Sokoban before the Mines is that I'm dead scared one of the Gnomes or Dwarves will have a wand or something similar.

And still I got a BoH this game... and a GWTWOD showed up for my wizard's cloak of magic resistance.

Now if a nymph had stole my cloak shortly before that it would be a YASD worthy of being printed out and framed.

[JoshuaFH]

Well aren't you just Mr. Lucky Mcfortunatepants.

[Sowelu]

The community has a term for it: Start Scumming. You keep starting new wizards until you get super starting rings (slow digestion and conflict are top choices), scrolls (identify, magic mapping, charging, etc.) and spellbooks (identify, magic missile).

What's so great about magic mapping?  I always thought those sucked.

[umiman]

You wouldn't have to explore anything for one thing, except for certain levels. Also, you don't have to waste time searching when you already know everything on the level.

Edit: Man, this sucks. My level 5 barbarian with -7 AC was doing so awesome. I saved and went to get something to eat. When I came back, I turned it on and was playing until the battery died. I thought, "oh well, let's reload from save." So I turned it back on and the guy was deleted. 

[JoshuaFH]

That sucks Umiman.

My Tourist is having ridiculous luck!

Found another magic lamp! I did Soko, got a bag of holding. Then I took the time to bless my magic lamps, and I got:

1)A Blessed Greased Fixed Eye of the Aethiopica (Magic resistance, extrinsic telepathy, fast magic regeneration, and Branchporting)

2)A Blessed Greased Fixed +2 Grayswandir (Tourists can get to skilled in Saber, it's silver, and deals double damage to everything, especially Silver hating monsters)

There's my two guaranteed artifacts.

Then I ventured further into the Gnomish Mines, and I found a Polymorph trap! I forced Grinder into it a couple times and finally got a TITAN! My pet Titan can heal himself, speed himself, wield weapons, hit hard, take hits, and is easy to keep fed.

I feel good about this pet stuff now.

Anyway, made it to Mine's End, and it's the one version with the Wine Cellar, and checking it out, it's FULL of smoky potions.

I need to get those blessed, asap, and try my luck at a third wish!

[umiman]

Titans can turn invisible too. They're really nifty. The only problem with a titan is that it can't reflect or resist magic.

[JoshuaFH]

Wow.... just WOW! My string of good luck never ceases to amaze me.

So, where I left off with my Tourist. I picked up all the smoky potions, and got the luckstone, but I accidentally picked up a loadstone as well, thinking that this was the one version of Mine's end that didn't spawn a loadstone. Getting rid of the loadstone was a small, frustrating adventure by itself, but it boiled down to me dropping a great deal of my valuable stuff, then hiking back up to make more blessed potions and get it off, only for my god to uncurse it for me.

I then got my stuff I ditched at Mine's End, and got my Titan to start killing all the Shopkeepers in Minetown (which he did with surprising ease) and then he killed the Minetown priest before I had a chance to talk to him to get protection (DOH!). Got a Robe off it though, better than my oilskin cloak. The robe started out cursed, so I uncursed, then greased it to get the desired effect.

Anyway, got the luckstone, picked up a bunch of other potions as well. Made a bunch of blessed potions, and used those to bless the smoky potions. Combined with the ones in the shop, I had 7 blessed smoky potions. I drank 6, and thought that my luck had run out, but then a Djinn popped out of the 7th and I almost jumped for joy. That was the best Blessed Greased Fixed +3 Silver Dragon Scale Mail ever.

Then I used my magic marker (oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about the magic marker!), which I blessed beforehand, to write quite a few blessed scrolls of enchant armor. Enchanting my all my equipment has netted me -27 AC!

Then I got some more holy water, went back to pick up the couple of spellbooks I didn't bother picking up, blessed them, and got dig, invisibility, and POLYMORPH! I can only cast it as 95%~ success rate, but that's still pretty frickin' awesome. Identify would've been better though.

So let's count off the advantages:

Magic resistance
Reflection
Awesome Weapon
-27 AC
Bag of holding
Ring of levitation (I forgot to tell you)
Invisible
Poison resistant (from a white unicorn)
Sleep Resistance (Elf)
Gloves and shoes (vital for dealing with cockatrices)
Great pet
Lotsa money (but nowhere to spend it!)
Wand of fire
Wand of digging
Wand of teleportation
Branchporting
and a lot of other stuff I can't name off the top of my head.

I'm only slightly above turn 20,000, and I could seriously take Salt all the way probably. I'm gonna go for it! My only regret thus far is letting that priest get killed before I could get some AC off him, I hope I find another.

[kcwong]

Wow.... just WOW! My string of good luck never ceases to amaze me.

Good for you... my wonderful wizard is tainted a bit, for even with a ring of searching I walked into two poisonous pits in a row and my 13 St gained in Sokoban was reduced to 8 (starting at 9). So now I have big trouble carrying stuff around, and I have no idea when I can find a cross-aligned unicorn to kill. But I guess I should be happy that it's not deadly poison...

but I accidentally picked up a loadstone as well, thinking that this was the one version of Mine's end that didn't spawn a loadstone.

Wine cellar doesn't have a loadstone in the fixed layout, but I think it can be generated by other means (e.g. death drop, polymorph) after you arrived.

I then got my stuff I ditched at Mine's End, and got my Titan to start killing all the Shopkeepers in Minetown (which he did with surprising ease) and then he killed the Minetown priest before I had a chance to talk to him to get protection (DOH!).

I always keep the doors to the priest, general store and Izchak intact and locked... and I make it a business to terminate all dwarves quickly (it's Gnomish mine, not Dwarvish!) . Guards will be locked in empty rooms or killed by pets.

Got a Robe off it though, better than my oilskin cloak. The robe started out cursed, so I uncursed, then greased it to get the desired effect.

Unless you want to cast a lot of spells, I'd say oilskin cloak is a lot better... because of ;'s.

Then I used my magic marker (oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about the magic marker!), which I blessed beforehand, to write quite a few blessed scrolls of enchant armor. Enchanting my all my equipment has netted me -27 AC!

Blessed magic marker is not recommended... for all scrolls it wrote will be blessed (i.e. improve one step on BUC scale). Sometimes you want uncursed or cursed scolls, and a cursed potion of water is difficult to get.

I'm only slightly above turn 20,000, and I could seriously take Salt all the way probably. I'm gonna go for it! My only regret thus far is letting that priest get killed before I could get some AC off him, I hope I find another.

Don't get too cocky... that's a mistake the RNG wanted you to make.

[LegoLord]

Man, Josh, how do you manage to get so lucky?  I haven't even managed to get to the end of sokoban and back yet - always from bad luck or a slip of the finger!

[JoshuaFH]

I'll stick with the Robe Kc, I have a can of grease and a fire wand to help out with ;'s.

Though I do have to correct something I said. I don't have 95%~ success rate, I have a 95%~ failure rate with polymorph.

A 1/20 chance is pretty significant in my eyes, seeing as how I have some extra unicorn horns. Think I could net an extra magic lamp from polymorphing them? I could really use some blessed scrolls of genocide.

I have some bad luck on Sokoban too, sometimes monster's spawning in very bad locations, or doing things I don't expect them to do. For example, in Salt's game a goblin took one of the guaranteed scrolls of earth and read it when I was fighting him. I had to just take the luck penalty and break the boulders to complete the level. Giant mimics can also pose an odd threat, spawning right inbetween or even ontop of boulders.

[Quincunx]

Great job with the tourist, Chaoticjosh!  You have pretty much everything you need to ascend, now.  27 AC is plenty of AC (though more never hurts), you will have double magic resistance once you get the PYEC, and you have reflection.  You even managed to get levitation!  I envy your luck.  When I ascended, I only got one wish before the guaranteed wand of wishing, and I used it on about turn 35000.  You could ascend by then!  I did find two rings of conflict and two speed boots before DL11, so I couldn't call myself unlucky either.

The Eye may have been unnecessary as a wish, as the Platinum Yendorian Express Card also offers magic resistance and telepathy, and tourists don't usually need much MP.  The teleport feature is extremely handy, though.  I also would have wished for the silver dragon scale mail before Grayswandir and the Eye.  Reflection is good to have as soon as possible.  Actually, I suppose it wouldn't be that critical if you got the amulet from Sokoban.

As for the polymorph spell, I had that spell also and never used it.  By the time I got it, I already had everything I needed to win.  Besides, even with 18 int it still had pitiful chances of success.  Maybe you will put the spell to better use.  If you want the identify spell you could always wish for the appropriate spellbook once you clear the castle.

I wish you well.  You have everything you need to win, equipment-wise.  So go ahead and do your quest, then take Salt all the way!

[Sowelu]

It's a lot of fun reading these stories!

I hear that branchporting is really one of the more useful activities to have in the game though, helps to get away and helps immensely in transporting items around (keeping caches at the levels it can go to).